There are a range of betting and lottery products in the market. For example, there are pure pool betting products, such as the Pick 6 horse racing product in the United States and the Scoop 6 racing product (among others) in the United Kingdom. There are also sports betting products such as soccer individual games and/or pool wagering products. Pick 6 and Scoop 6 provides a six leg jackpot type bet that may also include a bonus pool and consolation prizes. The product type is relatively successful and provides players with a chance to win a large sum by betting on six races on a given race day. Similar multiple leg pool wagering is allowed for other types of racing events and multiple sports events.
In the United Kingdom, there also presently exists a free to play game offered by Skybet, the ‘Super 6’ whereby players are allowed to make just one set of soccer correct score selections to try to win a guaranteed payout. The Super 6 also has some similarities to the traditional soccer pools product but is different in that it is not predicting draws and only six selections are necessary. Many countries have similar pool products where players are asked to select winners in six or seven horse or dog races and can win a share of a large pool. In the United States, numerous states have lotteries where players select for example six numbers and purchase a lottery ticket for a specific drawing. There is also a “Mega Millions” game in which several states participate in a pooled jackpot. The correct selection of all six numbers allows the ticket bearer to claim all or a portion of the pooled jackpot, depending on the number of winning tickets.
The traditional soccer pools products in the United Kingdom offer a large payout if the player can select a large number of matches that result in a draw—particularly a score draw. Within soccer betting, correct score betting is the second most popular market after the central Home/Draw/Away (“H/D/A”) markets. A prominent United Kingdom based betting and gaming company recently reported that 84% of its retail (i.e. in betting shops) soccer bets were coupon based accumulators. Almost 90% of those are on four-fold and above. A four-fold is four selections, so 90% of the bets are on four selections and more. By comparison, in online betting, twice as many bets are singles as is the case in betting shops, and only 55% are four-fold and above.
Within this market segment, there is a need for new products to generate and maintain consumer interest.
For example, there is a need for new products that may allow groups of players to collaborate on wagers. Indeed, groups of players such as colleagues, friends, and families may wish to participate in a wager and wagering event together as a collaborative, team-building exercise, to pool resources, or for fun. Furthermore, players may have an interest in participating in a wagering event, but may find the prerequisites for joining the pool to be prohibitive. For example, a player may be reluctant to participate in a wagering event if the initial wager is too expensive (cost-prohibitive) or if the player believes that managing the wager throughout the wagering event would require too much time (time-prohibitive) or if the wager is too complex (resource-prohibitive). Accordingly, there is a need for new products to generate and maintain customer interest amongst participants who wish to collaborate on a wager.